Volume 4 No. 4 September 2005

TBS annual convention is Saturday, October 29, at Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne

TBS annual convention is Saturday, October 29, at Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne (NW of San Antonio and near New Braunfels) Registration form enclosed. Registration fee includes box lunch “Hill Country Nature” and snacks. Registration is $10.00 for members ... $25.00 for new members (includes membership, registration, and starter nestbox) by Bill Lindemann ... $20.00 for non-members. The word that best describes Hill Country nature is “diversity,” although SCHEDULE FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29: “beauty” would be a close second. 9:00 Nature / Bluebird Trail Walk, led by Dick Park 10:00 Bill Lindemann, Guest Speaker Located in the center of our large state, 10:45 Break / Silent Auction the Hill Country, or more definitively the Bill Lindemann Donated items & gift certificates needed for silent auction Edwards Plateau, is where east meets west 11:00 Season Summary & Highlights Discussion and north meets south, a virtual mixing bowl of those regions. Noon Lunch / NABS 2006 Information / Silent Auction Ecologically this region lies in the middle of both the rainfall and 12:45 Annual Meeting: Elections / Recognitions temperature ranges (50+ to < 10 inches average and 56 to 74 degrees 1:00 Richard Heilbrun, TP&W, Guest Speaker 1:50 Silent Auction Ends mean, respectively). The area has been influenced by geological 2:00 Farewell processes spanning more than a billion years. This diversity of wildlife is greatly influenced by the native plants “Wildlife Valuations” by Richard Heilbrun representing both wet and arid tolerant species as well as cool Richard Heilbrun will describe how, as temperate and sub-tropical species. Many eastern and western our state continues to become more and ranges overlap here, while seasonal migrations bring in both northern more fragmented, the Texas Hill Country and southern species. Similarly, butterfly, dragonfly and mammal will especially feel the brunt of the impact. populations reflect diversity based on their compatibility with the Once rich with wildlife, this area draws region’s climate and vegetation. development at an increasingly alarming Bill will introduce many of the characters that live in the Hill rate. Traditionally, land use in Texas Country, and discuss the factors that influence the diversity of involved producing a commodity, such as wildlife found there. Nature’s diversity and beauty help make the Hill Richard livestock, hay, or agricultural foodstuffs. Country the state’s most popular area for visitation and residence. Heilbrun Richard is an urban wildlife biologist with Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and will be speaking about the Agricultural tax program and Cibolo Nature Center - TBS convention site, Oct. 29 Wildlife valuation process. One hundred acres of protected lands in the Texas Hill Country at Today, more landowners purchase properties for Boerne. Four distinct ecosystems. Trails and streams and quiet groves. A place where nature can have its way. A place where we can watch and recreation, and prefer to provide habitat for wildlife. learn. The Cibolo Nature Center is for field trips, family outings and State law allows today’s landowners and land buyers to private moments. Enjoy the fellowship of others who relish the gifts of perform certain management activities for the benefit of nature. Participate in our workshops, join our cadre of volunteers, wildlife. These management practices, when approved attend our informal concerts on the lawn or spend a morning in quiet Please see Richard Heilbrun, page 4 contemplation. Welcome to the Cibolo Nature Center www.cibolo.org stop “some” “some” of the time but it will NOT stop ALL poses mysterious snakes ALL of the time! The larger diameter of a smooth mounting pole will stop smaller snakes that cannot constrict problem in nestbox around the pole and inch their way to the nestbox. As PVC pipe ages in sunshine it slowly oxidizes losing that slick outer layer Situation posed by Dan Hanan, 35 miles SE of Austin, TX and will at some point become rough enough to allow predators A snake, I assume it was a Texas , got my last nest of to climb to the nestbox. Jack Finch found that perfectly smooth the season baby Bluebirds; they were one or two days away 4" PVC pipe (test it by using a silk handkerchief rubbed up the from fledging at the time of previous monitoring. The nestbox surface of the pipe, if silk does not snag on bumps at all it is was mounted on a 6 foot high, greased, 1.5 inch diameter EMT considered “smooth”) with about a 36" ring of “sharp” crushed pole. The box had a second entrance hole on the back wall masonry sand spread around the base of the PVC mounting pole where the babies may have been able to escape. The snake left would keep snakes from climbing the PVC. It seems that enough a 1.5 inch wide greasy trail up to the front entrance hole, grease sharp sand would cling to the belly scales of the snakes to inside the box, and grease in various other places.This nestbox prevent their getting a grip on the PVC pipe. This only worked if was made earlier this year with the Texas heat in mind. It had an the sand was kept dry, something we cannot duplicate for the attic space (or a double roof with space in between), which had entire nesting season at every nestbox. Sharp masonry sand is 0.625 inch vent spanning the front and back sides of the box. mined where it was crushed either naturally or by machines and The box also had two 0.625 inch ventilation slots, one above the will have jagged edges and sharp angles on a majority of the door and the other on the opposite back wall just below the grains of sand. River masonry sand is mined/dredged from ceiling. It appears from the grease, that the snake went through streams or ocean beaches where it has rolled and tumbled for attic vents from front to back and maybe through the vents thousands of miles and under a microscope the individual grains above the door, as well as going through the front entrance of sand will mostly be tiny smooth oval or nearly round grit. For hole. A thought as I write this: maybe the babies had fledged high strength concrete or multi-story masonry jobs you MUST and the snake was hunting everywhere, including the attic, for use “sharp” sand as the points and angles resist shear them. There have been several times in the past where a snake pressures when embedded in a cement, sand or gravel mix. has climbed a nestbox pole days after the babies have fledged. Before “redi-mix” concrete mixes were available you used 35 From the 1.5 inch greasy trail up to the box entrance, I would shovels of “sharp” sand, 15 shovels of “crushed” gravel and 7 guess this last snake would be bigger than an inch in diameter. shovels of Portland cement. A gallon of concrete mix around a But could a snake of that size, or bigger, squeeze though the metal mounting pole resists theft of the nestbox and mounting 0.625 inch high ventilation slot? pole “Some” of the time. Response offered by Keith Kridler, Mt. Pleasant, TX Normally a snake that eats baby bluebirds just about to fledge from inside the nestbox and the box has 1&1/2" round entrance Fire Ants: major threat holes then the snake will be staying in the box for a day or two Keith Kridler, Mt. Pleasant, Texas while it digests the baby to the point it can escape back Others have given good advice and good observations about the many out of the round hole. The colder the temperatures the slower species of ants that might be in your nestboxes. There are several digestive juices work and the longer the snake will remain in the species of native fire ants and a couple of imported species and some nestbox after eating LARGE baby birds. or young birds of these are still spreading out following people and their water use less than about 8 days old or just a single large baby bird will into new areas of colonization. Fire ants prefer to nest where the grass not stop a snake from leaving the nestbox through an entrance is short and there is sunlight striking the moist ground and where hole. If the snake had eaten the baby birds then it would have winters are fairly mild. They utilize the heat from the sun to help been days before it could have crawled through the 5/8" speed up the growth of their eggs and young and they build a mound above ground level during cool or wet periods of the year and carry ventilation slots. It seems to me the snake scented the old nest their young back and forth between the mounds or their deep tunnels or simply was back making rounds of its territory, checking out or chambers depending on the temperature. They are EXTREMELY cavities that in the past provided food and blundered through prolific and by sheer numbers they need an enormous amount of food the grease. When it found the empty nest it began serious and prefer oily or fatty foods to grains or sugars. To test for fire ant efforts to remove the grease from its skin scraping off much of numbers in your yard or along your trail you should set up a grid the grease by squeezing through the ventilation slots. (My son where you place a fried corn chip every 75 feet and mark this with one Shawn is an inexperienced mechanic and yesterday he scraped of those plastic flag on a wire marking tags. Set these out either at grease and oil off his hands on his pants! He is NOW dawn or two hours till dusk. If 70% of these chips have fireants experienced!) I don’t think snakes learn to avoid grease if they feeding on them in your test area within 30 minutes then you have a are hungry any more than some dogs will avoid a skunk after normal amount of fire ants. Remember that fire ants feed on all types being sprayed. Snakes encounter hydrocarbons every time they of slow moving especially those like cicadas, moths,beetles and cross a highway. They also encounter hydrocarbons every time butterflies that are helpless as they go from a pupa stage to the adult they encounter weed killer sprayed on fence lines or along stage.Young deer (fawns) are especially at danger as they will lie power lines/pipe lines. They also run into hydrocarbons where motionless and allow fire ants to cover them and often get blinded by home owners sprayed paint or insecticides in their yards or the ants as they sting and bite off pieces near their eyes, nose, navel where farmers spray their crops. Grease applied to mounting and mouth. Turtle, snake and eggs are eaten by fire ants as they poles allows you to track what predator went up the pole and lack the hard calcium layer. Fire ants climb trees in search of food and what they did when they got to the box. This lets you know you even cross over power poles coated with or oozing creosote, penta or have a problem and how common it is. Four-inch PVC pile will 2 September 2005 TEXAS BLUES NABS 2006 Bluebird Symposium “Red, White & Bluebirds” a HOT Success! Register early for the April 26-30 NABS Convention in San Antonio. Early registrants get 1st choice on fabulous The 2005 Summer Bluebird Symposium, led by Keith Kridler, brought us 29 New Members and field trips. $1,716 ... and this success came in our “down” Register on-line at www. NABS2006.com or find a time in the hottest heat of summer. registration form inserted in your mailed complimentary issue of “Bluebird.” Cheryl Anderson, Chairman, and her crew The Texas Bluebird Society gives an “Early Bird Gift (Mindy Mitchell, Michelle Rider, Kathy Pinkerton Package” to those who register before November 1, 2005. and Joan Goodkin) deserve a round of applause. Upon check-in, each “Early Bird” will receive 37 And, many thanks to those who donated silent auction items. complimentary prize drawing coupons and a convention t- shirt. The first 370 registrants will receive in the mail an The Symposium travels from region to region Alamo potholder. Every 37th “Early Bird” registrant will each summer in order to bring a TBS event to a receive a ceramic Alamo bank. venue “within driving distance” for individuals across Texas over a period of years. So far, Needs for NABS 2006 - [email protected] we’ve covered the Golden Triangle, Texas Hill Country River Region, and Dallas/Fort Worth. or phone Pauline, 512.268.5678. To volunteer to chair next year’s Summer (3rd Saturday in August) Symposium in your region, contact Pauline Tom. We’ve developed a Fire Ants (from page 2) general plan for conducting the event. treated with other “green” wood preservatives. Grease in most areas of the south will quickly “gas off” and harden or get dust or leaves blown A silent auction brings fun and profit to each TBS into the sticky surface and become hard enough for the ants to cross over event. We sent in just a few days. Fire ants will actually carry material and build a bridge over an obstruction or cover up poison or they will cover up a large food to each of the source to feed in safety below the ground they just created. Bluebirds are donors this in the nestbox for just about three weeks. If the nest is not removed the photo of the old feather sheaths (white dandruff in the old nest) provide great food for 2005 the fire ants in addition to the parts and old bird droppings in old nests. Fire ants lay down a scent trail to any food they find and will Symposium swarm to the location just as honeybees will to a good sugar source auction during a drought! Fire ants overpower termites and can wipe out and eat winners with an entire colony in a dead tree or in the walls of a house. Fire ants can their items. wipe out a weak honeybee hive or bumble bee, hornet colony or even wasp nests. They chew into mud dauber nests to get to the paralyzed spiders or wasp grubs. They learn to climb the tires of your car every coast states from East Texas to Florida). That many ants need a night to eat the insects killed in the radiator! They out compete LOT of food. That many ants can search out every square inch most other species of ants in their ideal habitat which happens to of ground and every tree limb within their territory. And yes fire be exactly what a bluebird needs. These Fire Ants avoid deep dark ants can kill healthy baby bluebirds. After day thirteen they can woodland areas. They use electromagnetic fields to navigate by cause the young to leave the nestbox well before they can fly and are drawn to utility right of ways that create a huge magnetic although often the older birds are also killed. KK field and this is to them just like a bright light to a night flying insect! They travel along wires and often plug up electric breaker (Note: The information provided above regarding Fire Ants was panels and the control boxes for water wells and outdoor air- originally posted on the Bluebird-L mailing list.) conditioning units. In a bird nest they may sometimes be found swarming over unhatched eggs. They cannot chew into a normal shell but they will immediately enter the egg as soon as the North American Bluebird Society Convention baby bird pips the eggshell creating a small hole for them. They Hosted by Texas Bluebird Society can drive off the female bird and the eggs will chill and not hatch April 26-30, 2006 when she abandons the nest to them. Multi Queen Fire ant San Antonio Airport Hilton mounds can have as many a 250,000 ants per mound with more than 400 actively laying queens per mound. It is not unusual for www.NABS2006.com there to be 200>400 of these mounds per acre in good habitat (gulf

TEXAS BLUES September 2005 3 Texas Bluebird Society Non Profit Standard P. O. Box 40868 Paid President’s Column Austin, Texas 78704 Permit #444 An updated and upgraded roster provided the mailing list for this Buda TX 78610 newsletter - finally! The TBS Board extended your membership by three months to convey gratitude for your patience. In other Board action, TBS sent $500 to Heard Museum in McKinney, TX, for their drive to buy adjoining property to save it from development. Heard Museum nestboxes host not only bluebirds, but also Prothonotary Warblers and other cavity-nesting species. What do you think of the proposed mission statement (below)? Can we fling our heart around the statement? If you have comments, please write or phone. Soon we will embrace this statement or an adaptation. Every year at the Texas Parks & Wildlife Expo (this year, October 1-2), we hear “joy of bluebirds” success stories from those who obtained a nestbox because of a contact with TBS - through our efforts in a previous year. “Our” work continues to expand across Texas, impacting conservation and human hearts. Hosting the NABS Convention brings TBS the opportunity to make “a lot” of money; but it costs over $10,000 to produce the event. Do you know a corporate decision-maker who would take a look at our sponsorship opportunities for NABS 2006? Contact [email protected] or phone Mindy Mitchell, 817.980.7986 to obtain a sponsorship package. For the NABS 2006 auctions we seek donated items (nature- related or Texas-themed). Find a donation form in the centerfold of the convention brochure in your complimentary mailed Fall issue of “Bluebird.” Hope to see you at our annual TBS Convention in Boerne on Saturday, October 29, and at the NABS Convention we host, April 26-30, 2006, at the San Antonio Airport Hilton.

Yours, Richard Heilbrun (from page 1) Pauline by the county appraisal district, can be classified under Bluebirds Across Texas ... one nestbox at a time Agricultural Use and provide the landowner with a tax valuation similar to traditional agricultural practices. Richard Heilbrun has been with TPWD for 3 ½ years “Build Your Own Nestbox Cam” and has been in San Antonio since April 2004. He holds – Instructor Needed both a Bachelor and a Master degree in Wildlife Ecology from Texas A&M University. We have scheduled this workshop ($200 fee for supplies) for During Richard’s 1 p.m. address at the 2005 TBS Wednesday afternoon and Sunday afternoon during the NABS Convention. An electronics salesperson provided a list of supplies, convention at Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne on Saturday, but he must now be out-of-state the last week in April. We have a Oct. 29, attendees will benefit from a basic introduction to “Birds & Bloom” article with instructions and contact information the tax valuation process, learn about the requirements for for a bluebirder in Georgia who helps people build nestbox cams. the program, and gain instruction in various management Would you be interested in instructing the workshop? E-mail strategies to benefit native Texas wildlife. [email protected] or phone Pauline Tom at 512.268.5678.

WILLS POINT FESTIVAL - HELP NEEDED The 2006 Wills Point Bluebird Festival, April 22, falls the weekend before NABS Convention. We need a TBS member to coordinate a “membership/nestbox exchange” booth at the WPBF front entrance. Texas Blues is a bi-monthly publication Please step forward and take the reins! Contact: Pauline Tom, 512.268.5678. THE TEXAS BLUEBIRD SOCIETY P.O. Box 40868 Proposed Mission Statement: Austin, TX 78704 Texas Bluebird Society promotes the enjoyment, understanding, and restoration of bluebirds. www.texasbluebirdsociety.org [email protected] Texas Bluebird Society Board of Directors Cheryl Anderson; John Cys; Lee Hutchins; Lysle Mockler; Charles Post; President: Pauline Tom, 512.268.5678 Mike Scarbrough; Pauline Tom; LeAnn Sharp; Dan Hanan; Sandy Coggins; [email protected] Vice President: LeAnn Sharp, 830.966.2134 Mary Leyendecker (editor, Texas Blues) [email protected] Texas Bluebird Society 4t h An n u a l Co n v e n t i o n Saturday, October 29, 2005 Cibolo Nature Center in Boerne (just northwest of San Antonio)

“Hill Country Nature” by Bill Lindemann “Wildlife Valuations” by Richard Heilbrun Schedule: 9:00 Nature / Bluebird Trail Walk, 12:45 Annual Meeting: Elections / led by Dick Park Recognitions 10:00 Bill Lindemann, Guest Speaker 1:00 Richard Heilbrun, TP&W, Bill Lindemann 10:45 Break / Silent Auction Guest Speaker 11:00 Season Summary & Highlights 1:50 Silent Auction Ends Discussion 2:00 Farewell Noon Lunch / NABS 2006 For more info: www/texasbluebirdsociety.org Email: Information / Silent Auction [email protected] Phone: 512.268.5678 Driving Directions from San Antonio: Take Interstate Highway 10 north about 30 miles to the first Boerne exit, number 542, which is Highway 87 north. Follow Highway 87 north through the intersection with State Highway 46 west. Continue up the hill on Highway 87, which is also Main Street. As you descend the hill into Boerne’s Historic District (where Main Street is called the Richard Heilbrun Hauptstrasse) and approach the bridge over Cibolo Creek, take the angled lane to the right that crosses the creek. Turn right onto River Road (State Highway 46 east), which parallels Cibolo Creek. Continue on Highway 46 east for about one mile and turn right onto City Park Road. (If you reach the Kendall County Fairgrounds you have gone too far.) Take City Park Road almost to the end and turn right into the Cibolo Nature Center. Directions are available online at www.c i b o l o . o r g. Print the MapQuest map.

Enclose membership Registration Form: includes box lunch from Bear Moon Bakery and snacks dues (if applicable), and registration fee ______$10.00 Member Registration with form. NAME(S) Mail to: ______$25.00 New Household TBS Membership (includes free nestbox) STREET ADDRESS P.O. Box 40868 Austin, TX 78704 ______$20.00 Non-member Registration Mail before Monday, October 24th, ______$ 7.00 At-the-door Late Fee CITY ZIP CODE to avoid the $7.00 “At-the-Door” Fee ______$ Total Enclosed PHONE EMAIL